Within hours of taking his second oath of office, Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders and declarations, and fired the starting gun on what has been a rapid and radical programme of change in his first 100 days.
So far, he has shown no sign of taking his foot off the pedal.
The sheer quantity of his news-generating actions over the past few months could be seen as a carefully considered strategy. It is one that Steve Bannon, the right-wing podcast host who advised Trump during his first term, first floated as long ago as 2018.
“The Democrats don’t matter,” Bannon told the writer Michael Lewis at the time. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone.”
So seven years on, with Trump back in the Oval Office and the zone not just flooded but virtually submerged, does Bannon think the strategy has worked?
“Flooding the Zone’ is an overwhelming success,” he tells me via text. “The biggest victory is a broken globalist media that finds itself too frayed to cover our assault on the institutions of America’s oppression.”
It is a typically bombastic response. A wide variety of opinion polls, however, suggest the public is less enthusiastic. Trump’s overall approval rating at this stage of his presidency, for example, is the lowest of any president in the past 80 years, according to a joint ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released on the weekend.
In his usual fashion, Trump hit out at “fake polls from fake news organisations”.
But do they suggest ailing support that could pose a problem for him down the line?
It is still early, of course, and Trump’s base remains fully committed. Even so, the best laid plans of even the most cautious politicians can go awry. So after 100 days of action, is there anything that could derail Trump’s promised agenda in the coming months?
Here are three potential scenarios.
Tariff dream turns to recession nightmare
Trump has spent many years talking about the good that tariffs could do for America’s economy – and now he is trying to make it a reality.
But staking your presidency on a policy of global economic disruption comes with significant risks.
Trump has already reacted to tanking global markets by announcing tariff pauses, and he has signalled he is ready to make a deal with China by recently making warmer comments than the earlier angry barbs aimed at Beijing.
But in July, steep tariffs on imports from any countries that do not have a trade deal with the US are set to come into force.
Can the administration really agree 90 trade deals in 90 days as Trump has promised? If not, the president may find that his tariff regime and the potential for more market chaos begins to further shake his standing with voters.
Voters who backed the president in November, at least many I have spoken to, appreciate the White House message that he is standing up to countries that have for decades taken advantage of the US and seeking to inject fresh life into American manufacturing.
But there is a tension between this message and what plays out on the ground – not in diplomatic talks between leaders, but on main streets and in supermarkets as Americans go about their daily lives.
Trump’s tariff plans have driven a stock market sell-off and raised fears of economic recession. And a poll by CBS News on Monday indicated there is a growing belief among voters that the administration is focused too much on tariffs and not enough on lowering prices.
This feels key to the success of the Trump administration in coming months. Ambitions to reset the global trading order are one thing – and a popular one among the president’s supporters at that – but handing the cost of this to the average American consumer by increasing taxes on virtually all imports is dangerous politically, even more so if the country were to tip into recession.
A constitutional crisis
Immigration has always been Trump’s signature issue. He enjoys higher approval ratings on it than any other policy area, with polls suggesting a significant number of voters support his swift actions to deport thousands of undocumented migrants.
As the administration pursues this immigration crackdown, it may not be the views of voters that hamper Trump, but rulings from the nation’s courts. Judges are repeatedly telling the White House that its actions may be in breach of the law.
The case of one man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has already made it to the Supreme Court. The administration has admitted it made a mistake when deporting him to a notorious prison in El Salvador, but appears unwilling to follow a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” his return to the US.